What Happened at Midnight(14)

Don’t be a fool. Of all the things you are, at least you’re not a thief. Not yet.

Sir Walter stood as John came up to the garden gate and moved to put himself between the table and the intruder.

“Mr. Mason,” he said in clipped tones. “How may I be of assistance?”

He was standing in the way. She couldn’t see John’s face with Sir Walter standing there. Was he angry? Or did he think that what transpired last night was a mere amusement? She could just imagine that smile she’d once adored creeping up. This time, though, the joke would be on her.

“I noted the good care you took of your ladies yesterday.”

If the morning hadn’t been so silent, Mary might not have made out John’s reply. She concentrated, so as to catch every word.

“I don’t know if the women of your household go out walking,” he said, “but I’ll be directing laborers on the neighboring field for the next few days. You might want to have them turn away from the west, if you would.”

Sir Walter rubbed his hand against his head, a gesture that Mary recognized as confusion. She felt similarly dazed. He wasn’t going to disclose what had happened?

Stop dreading. He couldn’t have meant it, though. Not really.

John continued. “I’ve heard from Beauregard that you’re protective in that regard, so I thought I’d pass along the information.”

“Thank you,” Sir Walter said. “It was most considerate of you to bring that message.”

“We’ll be tromping around in the trees near the windbreak until sunset—and possibly after.” She still couldn’t see him with the gate and Sir Walter in the way. But he’d said last night that they would talk. Clearly this was his way of letting her know when and where. Not a reprieve, then. A temporary cease-fire.

“Sunset is quite late,” Sir Walter said.

“I don’t believe in wasting good daylight. The sooner I can get my people away from your boundaries, the happier I think we shall all be.”

“Indeed,” Sir Walter said. “And really—you are a good fellow. Better than I gave you credit for at first. My apologies.”

“How could you know?” came the reply. “I might have been anyone. One can never be too careful these days. I must take myself off—I’ve still a good bit left to be done today.”

John took a step away—so that Sir Walter stopped occluding him—and Mary got her first good look at him. He looked…tired. His hair was rumpled, and the ends of his cravat had come untucked. But when he met her eyes, they didn’t seem implacable, as they had yesterday. They’d softened. “Ladies,” he said, “I trust the morning finds you well?”

Mary froze, unsure whether a response would be allowed. Whether she should look away from him. But even over this distance, even though she couldn’t really see the expression in his eyes, she felt caught up in the net of his gaze. She looked down swiftly.

“Lady Patsworth?” Sir Walter asked. “Do speak.”

“Tolerable,” the lady returned. “It is dreadfully hot, but the fashion pages are a comfort to me.”

John nodded as if that response made sense. “And you, Miss Chartley?”

Mary’s lungs burned. She focused her gaze on the teaspoon that she had not stolen, clenched in her fist.

“Go ahead,” Sir Walter said, his eyes flat on her. “You may address him.”

John didn’t flicker an eyelash at that. But his very lack of reaction gave him away.

You need his permission to speak to me?

She did. It was one of the first rules she’d learned. She wasn’t to communicate with anyone outside the household unless she had his explicit approval. For her safety, he said. Always for her safety. He would know who might use her badly. She’d been naked on top of John last night, but today, in the dim light of morning, with him seeing the poor, helpless thing that Sir Walter had made of her, she felt truly exposed. She couldn’t win. She couldn’t run. She couldn’t even draw breath to ask for help.

And now John, of all people, knew.

“As you can see,” Mary said to her teaspoon, “I am perfectly well. Sir Walter would never allow anything to happen to me.”

Maybe, if she didn’t acknowledge the obvious, it wouldn’t exist.

But John tipped his hat at Lady Patsworth. “I wish you all continued health,” he said. “Sir Walter. Lady Patsworth.”

He didn’t say her name in farewell. But he caught her eye—just for a second—and he gifted her with a glimmer of a smile.

Her heart came to a halt. For one moment, she felt like the naive, foolish girl she’d once been, giddy simply because a handsome man grinned at her. She felt the weight of all her worries lift, buoyed away temporarily by the curve of his lips.

She hadn’t realized how much she’d come to dread everything about her life until she forgot to fear for one second. But then he turned away, and she was left to stare after him, blinking, uncertain of what had just transpired between them.

Chapter Six

IT WAS TEN IN THE EVENING when John finally saw Mary’s slim figure separate itself from the back garden gate.

From there, she picked her way across the meadow, toward the place where he waited in the shadow of the trees. The windbreak wasn’t a proper wood—just a section of steep, rocky soil that followed the slope of the hill, one that would have been almost impossible to cultivate.